#ranted a bit but you get my point

[moonpaw]

[saypleasetickleme]

So my lee friend and i are potentially meeting up pretty soon and i can't wait to tickle the shit out of her!

It's gonna be great, the only issue is that she's pretty adamant she wants to keep all her clothes on no matter what. She said she'll take her shoes and socks off and maybe wear a t-shirt or whatever but i just, idk if i can tickle her properly like that you know? Do you have any advice to help convince her it's okay and way better without?

I mean.....I really don't know what kind of response you were expecting to get from this? I was half debating just ignoring it like I usually do with asks in this wheelhouse but you know what, these topics are important, so let's talk about it. If i'm being honest, I don't think you should be Lering for anyone if you can't respect a boundary like that to the point you're asking for advice on how to gaslight her about it??? You were so close to having the right mindset at the end there; convince her it's okay. That is literally all you need to do. Because it is. Because I can't believe I actually have to say this, but her comfort level with her own body has absolutely nothing to do with you.

Your job as a Ler is to make sure she's safe, comfortable, and enjoying a scene as much as you are. That's it. Tickles over clothes are completely valid and still fun and great. If during pre-session talks you get the okay to sneak hands under clothes so long as skin isn't on display, amazing. You literally mentioned her being okay with giving you her bare feet, that's no small thing! Open and honest communication is genuinely the most important thing in any of these spaces, and she's doing that with you. You owe it to her to do the same if it's truly something that'll prevent you wanting that experience, but don't you dare make her feel guilty about it. If a lack of clothing is more important to you than your Lee's comfort level then I really don't know what to tell you other than the fact you should probably re-evaluate that mindset before meeting up with anyone.

[vhstown]

reminder that ppl who make stuff on the internet for free don't actually owe you anything at all like ... as sad as it is that ur fav comic / fanfic hasn't updated in god knows how long that person has a life 😭 can we not harass people and be compassionate and patient and understanding thanx

[imminent-danger-came]

So, lmk as a deconstruction of monster of the week right. There are plenty of episodes with concepts/plots commonly found in western cartoons—for example, 1x02 is the "main protag makes too many clones" plot, 1x06 is the racing episode, etc. Anyways, all of that to say that I always get taken OUT when I remember 2x05 "Minor Scale" is the "this character get's shrunk" episode. Minor Scale.

[artheresy]

Yingxing Appreciation 🎉🎉

hi, hello, it's Yingxing appreciation time and I'm dragging you into it bc he is my baby and I need more ppl to talk about him

Y'know I see a lot of people like in awe and hyping up DF and just giving him tons of appreciation while analyzing him specifically as an individual which is all so so valid, DF is amazing and very intriguing as a character and I love him sm, but I sadly don't see the same for Yingxing despite him I think also being so interesting. I also see him more so dismissed in the "literally God and some guy" kind of fashion sometimes

So I'm here to rant just a little bit about Yingxing, why I love him, why he's epic and why he ruins my day every single time I think about him! This is for any of my fellow Yingxing lovers who are also starved of any content of him

Firstly, this man is a genuine genius, like lest we forget this is from Baiheng's travelogue in which she met a young Yingxing who was still a child by this point.

He was a young boy but had already become a craftsman, a sign of his ability to learn exceedingly quick under Huaiyans tutelage. And his ability to work and progress incredible fast continues into his time as a young man on the Luofu.

We know he arrived probably somewhere around 18-21 (in my personal estimate) and by the time he saw Jingliu again (which itself was likely early into his stay on the Luofu given HCQ ages and timing), he had already impressed the Master Craftsmen of the Luofu's Artisanship Commission and earned himself a title.

There are also multiple things in game that emphasize his achievements and creations he crafted, some offhandedly mentioned in a readable or item while others are emphasized with importance.

Casually mentioned in the Discarded Ingenium Parts is his feat in the Great Trial of the Furnace (perhaps that trial is for gaining the furnace master title? Once again signifying an earlier achievement in his legacy) where it took him only a day and night to create a whole mechanical lion that moved and looked just like a real live lion from a bunch of defective parts and waste.

More recently in 1.5, they released a readable, the Ten-Lords Criminal Directory, which mentions an imprisonment method designed by Yingxing that keeps “Mirage” in a perpetual state trapped within a hallucination of their own making. Utilizing it’s own powers in order to keep it imprisoned. Something that with proper maintenance seems to have lasted for around 700 years so far.

And of course, how can we forget his most famous creations

The beautifully crafted weapons of the High Cloud Quintet, from Jingliu’s incredibly heavy sword remarked as being as heavy as three thousand catties, to Dan Feng’s Cloud Piercer with the ability to even cut through dragon scales, and the Devastator Glaive as well as Baiheng’s recurve bow. Each impressive in their own ways and seemingly crafted pretty early as well into his time on the Luofu with the HCQ given the distinction of Jing Yuan who (even if he likely was more a teen than a boy) still wasn’t an exact adult yet. So once again, let me emphasize this man’s skill here. With how many things he managed to do so so early into his time on the Luofu. A genius craftsman who deserved all of the praise he had garnered with his works.

Additionally, I know they keep harping about “ugh arrogant craftsman, ugh he’s so full of himself” but every single time we’ve seen his personality, he just seems like a genuine joy to be around. Bright, charismatic, sure he’s cocky but he also gives the impression of being incredibly fun and a bit silly if you ask me.

His behavior as mirrored by the mirage echo in Scalegorge Waterscape is distinctly playful even in what might be a more tense situation, lightly bantering with Dan Feng and even chuckling in certain languages.

In Jingliu’s character stories, it even furthers this bright, playful attitude he gives off with his distinct cheekiness shining through especially with that “toothy grin” of his. And if you listen to Jingliu’s (at least her English) voice lines during Clouds Leave No Trace when she speaks about Yingxing before getting into his transformation, there is a distinct fondness or amusement in her voice as she speaks of him especially that cocky nature of his despite her distaste for it at first.

While Baiheng is hailed as this kind figure in the High Cloud Quintet, perhaps their sun even casting light upon them, it doesn’t seem too far off to say Yingxing was a shining star among them in his own right. His easy going nature with them bringing about a bubbly playfulness similar to Baiheng given their closeness from when he was young. I could go into way more especially in regards to the casualness at which Yingxing seems to speak and treat others allowing for a more equal formation of relationships especially with Dan Feng but I’m saving that for another rant.

And all of this about him especially how expressive he seems at certain points he’s been mentioned, really just makes me so incredibly sad when thinking about Blade now. How severely separated he is from this identity. A division that exists from not only his death but from the way his mental state has been severely warped from his time with Jingliu and being affected afterwards by the mara.

The sheer dehumanization and lack of a personal identity in place of seeing himself as a solely a weapon when put next to Yingxing, with such a clear bold individual identity, really makes the transformation of one into the other all the more jarring and tragic. Especially with the emphasis on how Yingxing hated the abominations of Abundance only to become one himself, something that is still implied to have not been by his own hand. Blade is an immensely tragic character, but that tragedy only holds weight because of the life and identity Yingxing had. It is only with Yingxing’s light which shined despite the circumstances of his life that his descent into darkness hits harder, and it makes me so sad that I haven’t found many others talking or expanding upon this despite my searches because he really is such a well written character with so many details in his story that are both interesting and utterly heartbreaking.

And additionally, I want to say that I think there is a lost potential in examining the Xianzhou through Yingxing. Specifically in the way he is treated as a short life species. We know how the relationship between the Vidyadhara and the Natives, especially as it’s changed after Dan Feng, but there is a very interesting relationship to be explored between the Xianzhou and the Short Life Species the end up there, especially through Yingxing’s relationship to the different Artisans guilds whether on the Luofu or the Zhuming.

In the end, it becomes another sad element to Yingxing’s story. Yingxing managed to change his attitude regarding how the Zhuming masters treated him and even grew more of a confidence, but even in the Luofu's Artisanship Commission, he can never truly get as far as he deserves. Just as Jingliu says

Even with his work impressing the master craftsmen of the Luofu, even after more than showing his skill and earning the title of Furnace Master for that skill, he still would be denied higher positions and could only prove his true worth by the High Cloud Quintet.

And just let me say it again, him being a short life species allows for such an interesting examination of the world and people around him based upon that. While we don't know exactly how they met, we do know that Yingxing was Huaiyan's personal disciple and the only one he mentions of the celestial masters to treat him with respect and believe in his capabilities despite knowing he's a short life species. Through his treatment of Yingxing, we learn quite a bit about him. Through Baiheng's treatment of him as well, we learn a lot about her, more than anywhere else.

He's just UGH I need more exploration from Yingxing's perspective, the lack of it feels as if I'm being starved. He's so interesting, he's so fun, he's incredibly tragic, and he makes me cry every single time he crosses my mind. Please do yourselves a favor and think more about his character so you'll end up as sad about him as me. Or don't maybe. I dunno. All I know for sure is that you absolutely need to read Views of the Universe From a Starskiff: The Zhuming if you haven't. Anyways bye, thanks for listening to this rant, I gotta go cry over him.

Peep the tags also for a rant about my own characterization of YX if you wish to witness my insanity

[mxboxlocks]

im sorry i have to bitch about this

the term fully transitioned usually means to your own set transition goal. when someone is fully transitioned they are fully how they want and were meant to be. i'm not gonna sit here and pretend enbyphobes don't use this a lot (i should know being nonbinary) but i'm also not gonna pretend that it's some kind of bad thing to say things like "i fully transitioned" or "when i am fully transitioned".

you're right op! the bar can be set literally anywhere for anyone! so anyone can be fully transitioned at any personal stage! the journey is yours to fulfill! jesus!

this is such a good-hearted take but i just. really. are we really gonna sit here and act like setting personal goals and filling them implies there's one way to be trans

[suspiciouslandlady]

I don't know which Sweden it is that you're referring to, but I can reassure you that we love Käärijä as much as any other country (although not as much as you finns ofc), while we are proud of Loreen and her historic win I haven't talked to anyone who wasn't cheering for Käärijä to win by the end of the show, he is the people's winner and that include us as well :3

It is unfortunate to be in a position to rob you of the crazy party your entire country would host if he had won, especially as we do not find this win anywhere near as impactful of a win as the first time Loreen won. But at least this might make him even more of a legend who is beloved by all!

I'm talking about how media in general tends to blend Finland and Sweden together. If something is up in the news about Finland, people outside Nordics often brush it off as "Oh, it's something Swedish related probably" or "Finland and Sweden, they're just two peas in the pod" type of stuff I see a lot.

And it's really frustrating because it feels like you can't mention Finland in any context without adding Sweden into it every single time.

Also, I'm frustrated and annoyed by the fact that Sweden is right now trash-talking Finland a lot in their own media. Calling us a dumb nation and referring to us as "the former eastern part of the kingdom". All because Finnish televoters didn't give points to Sweden. Many times Finland has been left out or gotten just the smallest points from Sweden but we've never really complained about it. In a Facebook group I'm in someone said that the same type of Swedish fb group atm is just bitching and trashing Käärijä completely, saying how he's a disgrace and they'd be so ashamed if he was the one they sent to the competition.

For so many years has Finland been chewed up and humiliated by Sweden but still, we've thought of the whole country as our brothers in arms. Playful rivalry, which is now just turning even more sour than it was before.

It's honestly sad but at the same time, I feel like Finland finally needs to cut the shit. We've been getting bullied by both Sweden and Russia for so long that enough is enough.

Käärijä gave us something that we've been wanting to get from the world.

And that is to be seen as Finland, which in fact isn't the shadow of Sweden.

Finland, who you can talk about without ALWAYS adding Sweden into the same context or sentence. Finland isn't a shadow of anyone.

Finland is a proud independent country that despite being under the control of both Sweden and Russia never lost its own culture.

And never will.

That's what Finnish sisu is.

[good-beans]

🚗

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF PRIORITY: TUCHANKA (PART 1)

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Urdnot Wrex, and Urdnot Bakara With: Dr. Mordin Solus, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, Urdnot Wreav, and Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor This will be the defining moment of Krogan history... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[im2tired4usernames]

@oceanlaceagate

Well ok you asked for explaining so I'm so sorry about the rant that's bound to happen I have beef with this woman like many many MANY homeschool co-op mothers I would like to meet her IN THE PIT

uh I guess trigger warning possibly would be like food diets and possibly eating disorders I'm not sure but I would rather be safe then accidentally harm you friend?

my mother was a crunchy homeschool nutter and her entire social group was crazy homeschool mom cultists.They were all obsessed with clean godly eating and losing weight they constantly kept repeating that they needed to treat their bodies like temples and it really wasn't healthy or good for so many reasons.

well one of the women in that group for as long as i can remember (I've know this lady since I was a lil kid) she believes it's impossible for European women to get fat because of *spins the wheel*

She just has some fucked up made up facts about Europe in general like WARNING SHE'S ACTUALLY ON PURPOSE STUPID

like she has for as long as I can remember believed with E V E R Y FIBER in her body (i have argued so much with her she will not budge in her world this is fact) no one once they hit preteens in france eats bread.

France home of the croissant, baguette and many other carbs bready bakery wonders...

Yeah no one there eats bread that is why French women are so thin and healthy they don't eat bread or any kind of sweets! (She and my mom then tried to make me do that for a bit they were always "suggesting" diets on me it sucked in expecting the thm diet and the melted butter+coffee+ apple cider vinegar diet to have fucked up my body somehow)

Apartly in her world no one in Ireland uses any kind of fat when I asked her to explain wtf that meant she said no one in Ireland uses oil or butter which like..

No that makes no sense where did she even come up with that?!I

Once I took a picture of like some fancy imported butter from Ireland at the store to show her and she and the other moms all straight up walked away and would not look at it. They would not talk to me kept actually doin the "talk to the hand" thing and covering their ears and telling me I'm wrong and stupid and to shut up they will not look at the evidence.

This woman is in her late forties to early fifties she has convinced half the homeschool mother cult that no one in France eats bread with no evidence other then she said so!!!!!

They honest to God believe it also!!!!

Recently she was trying to tell me that no one in the UK eats chicken that it's "looked down on as a disgusting poor man's food" she just went on n on on this long crazy rant that made no sense at all but she acted like she was very intelligent and cultured for knowing this.

My best friend and wife is from the UK and frankly i quickly asked them and they were able to point out this lady is just batshit insane.

Like my wife mentioned there's Nandos everywhere in the UK and that serves chicken mainly I have no clue where she's getting her info or ideas.

She got super angry amd defensive and has gone off saying she has two sources "two very reliable very real and very British people who totally aren't made up there her real Facebook friends that told her yup no one in the uk eats chicken only the USA makes fried chicken poor England is missing out on chicken because they're a bunch of snobs who think it's poor people food" so that's what she believes despite a lot of common sense and evidence to prove otherwise but "how dare I question an elder?!'

I really can't explain it like there's no logic or facts in it I myself don't understand it? I have gotten into many fights with this women.

So many fight

so so so many fights

Stupid amounts of fights

not just over this but like over everything under the sun I swear this woman is living a different reality then everyone else.

she just makes stuff up on a fly and then somehow convinces herself and like a dozen other women in they're 40s-50s that everyone in Europe is significantly skinner because they just happen to not eat the food that one lady dislikes...

like I can't really explain more then that this woman has no evidence, refuses to listen to evidence and has the firmest faith in stupidity I've ever seen it's truly kinda terrifying i wish i had her self confidence but also just wow....

I don't think that she's normal I think a lot of American children do actually learn about other countries? I learned about other countries when I was really young my mom would focus on one a month and then I'd have to do a lil presentation at the end of the month in front of my grandad and we'd cook a meal with some traditional foods from there if possible I had a lot of fun learning recipes from all over the world and we'd get a monthly cd with music from all over the world it was so cool! one of my favorite games when I was little with my grandad was he'd spin the globe point at random n then i had to say thw county, the capital, a famous food item from there and one history fact is famous person if I knew one and it was SO MUCH FUN!!!

maybe it's a new homeschool thing or a church thing or maybe this lady is just straight up purposely stupid I'm not sure? I have no fuckin clue this woman is insane I avoid her every chance I can.

[queenlucythevaliant]

In Defense of Wuthering Heights

This is not an “I can make him worse” book. It’s a “we can make each other better in the face of tremendous pressure to do otherwise” book. I promise. 

I’ve already written extensively about my love for Charlotte Brontë’s Villette and while I love lots of other Brontë books with all my heart, what I really want to do tonight is try to make you fall in love with Emily’s Wuthering Heights (generally the most divisive Brontë novel among modern readers) the way that I did.

The thing that a lot of people don’t know which I really think ought to be printed on all the dust jackets is that the Brontë sisters were the daughters of a revered. They were PKs and it totally shows.  

So Wuthering Heights is not a romance; it’s a family tragedy. Specifically, it’s an astonishingly hopeful book about generational trauma. 

Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw’s bastard son. This is never explicitly stated, but it is implied so heavily that it might as well be. To boot, Mr. Earnshaw favors Heathcliff over his legitimate son, Hindley. When Mr. Earnshaw dies, Heathcliff is immediately and violently cast out of the family and forced into servitude. Mr. Earnshaw’s hidden infidelity is Wuthering Heights’s original sin.

Of course, Cathy and Heathcliff love each other, but it’s a violent and destructive like-recognizes-like kind of love between two people who, on the one hand, absolutely should not be together and, on the other, totally deserve each other. They’re capital T Tragic and capital R romantic: co-dependent, sharp-toothed sibling-lovers who don’t understand their own relationship as kids because their father lied to them. That lack of understanding follows them into adulthood; they don’t really know how to make sense of what they feel for one another, but boy do they feel it. 

Cathy tells Nellie “I am Heathcliff” and “He’s more myself than I am” and “whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” and it’s half a reaction to the fact that one of her brothers (Hindley) has cast her other brother (Heathcliff) out of the family with a vengeance and half a statement of the fact that although she doesn’t know what Heathcliff is to her, she doesn’t know how to live without him. And while Cathy’s love for Heathcliff definitely fills romantic roles once they’re adults, it’s doesn’t really read as sexual. To use Lewis’s parlance: it’s not eros/gift-love, but rather need-love in the most emphatic sense. It’s storge. Actually, it’s really posessive storge that thinks it’s eros. Hence the problem. 

From the other side, Heathcliff is an outsider from the moment he enters the story. He’s an intruder and a presumed bastard. He’s coded as non-white, maybe Romani or similar. (Probably not actually African-black, but kudos to that one movie for at least making the attempt.) He’s… probably kind of a psychopath in that he displays cruelty to animals and then later on becomes a charismatic, manipulative monster. You can make a nature vs. nurture argument—Heathcliff is definitely on the receiving end of a lot of cruelty—but there’s also something Off about him and that too is othering. And after Mr. Earnshaw dies, Cathy is the one person who still loves him.

But of course, they can’t actually marry. On and off the page, that simply cannot be. Heathcliff runs away, Cathy marries Edgar Linton. They hurt each other badly in the process. Neither Heathcliff nor Cathy can escape the harm that Mr. Earnshaw began and Hindley perpetuated. Cathy dies, Heathcliff marries Isabella, and then things get really interesting.

Because the beating heart of Wuthering Heights, the place where you can profoundly see the fingerprints of the reverend’s daughter, is in the third generation. Cathy and Heathcliff devour each other in life and in death, but the children survive. They forgive. The patriarch died without knowing what he had wrought on his children, the second generation died in anguish, but the third makes it out. Or at least Hareton and Cathy II do.

Cathy’s daughter is named for her mother. Heathcliff’s son by Isabella Linton is named Linton Heathcliff. Heathcliff forces Hareton, Hindley’s son and the only one among the third generation not named for his parents, to live in the same debasement that Hindley once forced on him: he denies Hareton any education and forces him into servitude while simultaneously courting his admiration. In essence, Cathy and Heathcliff implore the next generation to go on living their parents’ tragedy and it. Doesn’t. Work.

Heathcliff tries to force them both into awful situations in which they must act out his trauma, his revenge, to go on perpetuating the pain and bitterness. And at first, it looks like they’re going to play their parts. For a time, they’re as awful to each other as everyone else is.

But then they change. Hareton tries to stand up for Cathy II while she’s essentially being held captive as part of Heathcliff’s 12-Step Revenge Plot. Cathy teaches Hareton to read. She laughs at him, but when she realizes that she’s hurting his pride she apologizes and learns to be patient.  

“I didn’t know you took my part,” she answered, drying her eyes; “and I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me: what can I do besides?”

And after this, they both stand up to Heathcliff. They say, “This ends here. This far and no farther.” Heathcliff is their dragon and they face him together. And when everyone else is dead in grand, tragic fashion, Cathy II and Hareton are left living.

But it’s not just that Hareton and Cathy II survive. They specifically un-do the failings of the previous generations. There’s a kind of atonement to it. They’re honest with each other, unlike Mr. Earnshaw. Cathy recognizes Hareton’s humanity, something Hindley never did for Heathcliff. Hareton lets go of his bitterness and resentment, while Heathcliff let his fester into cruelty and Elaborate Revenge. Cathy II is willful, like her mother, but she is also kind. Hareton is proud, like his father, but he is also compassionate. They forgive each other, while Cathy and Heathcliff only ever held grudges.

At the beginning of the book, Cathy is dead and has explicitly not gone to heaven; with the Brontës, you’ve gotta take these things seriously. Cathy is not in heaven and Heathcliff is a monster and they both seem to be damned, but they do not succeed in damning their children. And in that (I would say because of that), even Cathy and Heathcliff find peace after death.

I also do think that the fact that the story is narrated by Lockwood (weirded out by all of this) and Nellie (unreliable, cares deeply about everyone involved) can make it difficult to see the redemptive arc in the story as clearly as we might if it had an omniscient narrator, or if, say Cathy II was narrating. We're presented the Cathy and Heathcliff love story as this great, horrible, compelling saga (and it absolutely is), but then the following generation can almost seem like a footnote. They're adapted out of most of the film adaptations. But they're the whole point!

I do get why Wuthering Heights just isn’t to some people’s taste. Really. Some people just don’t go for Big Romantic Family Tragedy and that’s fine. But too many people come to the Brontës looking for Jane Austen or Elizabeth Gaskell and that’s just. Wrong. You’ve gotta at least read Wuthering Heights on its own terms before deciding that you hate it (not directed at anyone specific on here, but I do know people irl...). And you really ought to read it with an eye towards Emily’s faith. It makes a world of difference.

TL;DR- There’s a beautiful, very Christian center to Wuthering Heights and it’s one of forgiveness instead of revenge and kindness instead of cruelty. It’s a book about people who are destroyed by the sins of their fathers and those that manage not to be. In a way, it’s almost a fairytale.

[dawnstarranger]

Listen everyone has their own metric for what good writing is and isn’t but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get me down a little to see one of my faves dragged through the mud by both haters and fans alike on a pretty much weekly basis

[imminent-danger-came]

Sorry if you‘ve been asked this before, but since we know you‘re fav lmk characters, I was wondering what you‘re favorite duos and trios were?

And/or however many characters you wanna group together. Just in general, the character dynamics you find neat!

(My guess is that MK and Mei are somewhere on the top of the list- if not THE top)

One of my favorite things about lmk (of which there are many lol), is that you could throw two darts, and whatever two characters the darts land on are bound to have an interesting dynamic.

One of my favorite episodes is the Sandy and Huntsman episode (2x08), Tang and Macaque also have an intriguing conflict in 3x08, and Pigsy and Chang'e (3x07) have such a heartfelt shared passion that you can't help but enjoy their on screen time together.

I'm someone who wants a sort of Ne Zha and Yellowtusk "we reluctantly work together" arc, where even though Yellowtusk may have helped nearly bring the world to it's destruction, he ultimately helped save it, and he also happens to know a thing or too about keeping the Jade Emperor's power contained. I think it'd really fit in with lmk's "past mistakes vs making the right choices now" theme—in all honesty Yellowtusk has already paid his time with an eternity spent in the scroll—and now he can truly help make a better world. I think it'd be a neat way to keep him involved in the story, give Ne Zha someone to bounce off of (they both view power as sacred and a huge responsibility, unlike Wukong for example who is much more flippant with power), and would give some juicy drama ("You would betray your brothers?") between Peng and Yellowtusk later down the line.

Though anon you're 100% right, MK and Mei are at the top of my favorite dynamic list lol (They're whole motivation is to protect each other out of 100% platonic love. Obsessed with them). I'm also really partial for the MK, Mei, and Sandy trio that pops up here and there (1x03, 1x04, 3x04, 3x06). Traffic light trio is a treat, and the sunburst duo has my heart forever and always (I love seeing the way MK and Wukong's relationship has developed over the course of the show, both for the better and worse). Pigsy and Tang are always a delight (thank you 1x04, 2x03, 2x04, 3x05, 4x04, and specifically the line "Sometimes it's that little bit of char that makes for a more flavorful meat! Even if it is a bit tangy."), they're definitely at the top of my list. Obviously I like shadowpeach, and shadowpeach + MK (ooooo the monkeys are such delicious/tragic foils oooo), and I think Mei and Wukong have a really interesting dynamic (Wukong seeing Ao Lie in Mei, Mei viewing Wukong as someone who has hurt MK). Wukong and Azure's dynamic is also super interesting (Azure with his unrequited crush and heartbreak), so is LBD and MK's (could talk forever about these two), however I'll cut this off here since I could probably go on for a long while about this specific topic.

[dw-companion-bracket]

Bit late now but I think separating classic who and new who would have been a good idea and a bit fairer.

well yeah, but also that would have been kinda less interesting, i've loved watching certain classic companions narrowly gain victories from what i thought would have been obvious nuwho sweeps (thinking especially about the ian/clara match) and also seeing which classic characters have ended up being winning and iconic (hi ian). tbh if there was one thing i'd change going back to the start, it would be not putting four characters from any category through, because that's what made it possible for there to (technically only potentially but probably certainly) be an rtd-only semifinal and final, although that's also in part a problem of assuming equality across nuwho eras and classic who eras as two broad categories, and then splitting every group across the four corners of the bracket rather than, say, putting two rtd characters into two of the semifinal feeders. idk, there's lots of ways it could have been done differently, but the "unfair" results are also part of the interesting bits for me

[racke7]

Me vs FF14 part... 2?

It's taken me pretty much three full days of running from cutscene to cutscene. But I've finally reached Heavensward.

And like... on some level? I'm kind of offended?

Like, a part of me genuinely wants to replay the entire game from the start "as something else" (different main-class, different race, different starting-area, whichever), because the dungeon-queuing system is actually really fun when you start to Understand it.

As in, FF14 has somehow made an MMO that has almost eliminated the feeling that it is a level-grind? Partially? It's turned the whole thing into a surprisingly comfortable level of (limited, but genuine) social interaction.

To the point where even someone who isn't obsessively grind-focused like me, can genuinely enjoy themselves. Just queuing up for dungeons, Hunting some bounties, and-...

And then FF14 has so many fucking quests that it literally chokes the life out of the gameplay.

As an example, one of their biggest dungeon-draws (bcs high rewards) is a quest that almost everyone hates playing. Because doing that dungeon means watching literally eighteen minutes of unskippable cutscenes.

And that's with them having reduced the amount of cutscenes in that dungeon, because the players complained so much about them.

Like... I'd be perfectly happy replaying the game from the start with a different character, even knowing that leveling isn't some kind of pain-free thing. But the thought of having to restart the fucking Main-Quest? Of having to spend literal days just running back-and-forth to cutscenes?

I'm currently feeling a bit burned-out as a result of the binge I went on to get here, but I'm pretty damn sure that I wouldn't replay this fucking thing even if you paid me for it.

(And, of course, Heavensward also has a Main-Quest continuation that you have to follow. And now I'm not even allowed to fly everywhere to cut down on the "running back-and-forth"-part of my complaints. Not until they arbitrarily allow me to discover flight for the new areas, by going through even more of the Main-Quest.)

(Not to mention that now I have to go back and do even more Class-quests, with their own cutscenes, in order to unlock a bunch of skills.)

(I'm very fond of the "the church is evil because it doesn't let you fuck dragons"-meme, and I'm very much seeing it. But like... come the fuck on. Why is this MMO a feature-length movie-series? Why can't I just play the game and have fun?)

[hella1975]

‘you don’t seem too happy tho :(’ cunt I’ll bite you